Jorge Lorenzo believes a crash in the warm-up proved a blessing in disguise as he clinched second place at the Aragon Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Movistar Yamaha rider went out on the hard rear tyre and fell at turn eight in the early stages of the session, but a switch to the soft compound did not appear to be the answer.

Lorenzo subsequently changed his race set-up at the last minute and finished ahead of team-mate Valentino Rossi, with Marc Marquez topping the podium.

And the Spaniard claimed his performance may not have been as good had he not crashed in the morning.

"You know, probably the crash from this morning made me finish second, because I crashed in the warm-up so we needed to do two laps," said Lorenzo.

"I tried the first bike with the hard rear tyre and I liked it a lot, and when I tried the other one I didn't feel good, so the instinct told me to choose the hard one and finally the instinct got me a good result.

"I'm very proud. I did the maximum in the race, and we finished closer than we expected to the winner."

Rossi lamented a mistake late in the race that cost him the chance to fight for second, with the gap to championship leader Marquez now standing at 52 points.

"It's a shame because with two laps to go I made a mistake in braking and I had to go wide, if not we could have fought for the second place but the podium is okay," he said.